Confessions, Calculus and Chupacabras
by highway-salvation
Summary: Past!Dean/Sam/John/OC. In Alamogordo, New Mexico, Ryan and Sam attempt to adapt to a new school in their junior year as Dean helps John with a case involving a chupacabra.
1. Chapter 1

_Advanced Chemistry: Fourth Edition_ was acting as substitute pillow throughout fourth period. Ryan didn't usually snore, but considering just how knocked out she was, it wouldn't been surprising for her to start.

Luckily, Advanced Chem had never been a particularly difficult subject for her, despite the fact that many of her classmates were failing and constantly complained about the rigorousness of the class. Science and math came naturally to her. So naturally, in fact, that she usually found herself bored in the classes. Hence, the nap.

Mr. Harris's voice was hazy and muffled as he shouted her name. She was far too deep in a dream about hunting a wendigo to even notice that he was trying to wake her up.

But the large teacher's edition of the textbook falling onto her desk sure did the job.

Ryan's head immediately shot up, and she could hear little snickers coming from around the room.

"Would you care to join us, Miss Singer? Or is naptime more important than electron shells?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" she said in a sleepy voice.

The class laughed, and her impatient teacher shook his head and turned away from her. This wasn't the first time she'd hit the snooze button on his class. But the thing was, even when she slept, she got through the class without difficulty. When he assigned homework, she finished it and generally made low A's. When he had exams, even without studying, she made higher grades than the rest of the class. But that was probably what pissed him off the most. In a subject that he probably struggled to master, she was falling asleep daily and still understanding it better than he ever could.

"Tell us then, Ryan, what is another name for electron shells?"

It seemed that everyone turned around to look at her. They knew as well as he did that she would get the answer right. The class got a kick out of watching him get put in his place. But he did it to himself-he could try to call her out as many times as he wanted. She would always wiggle her way out of it.

After a pause, she stared straight at him with tight lips. "Principal Quantum Numbers, sir."

He stared right back at her, his eyebrow slowly raising. "Correct."

The class unanimously shook their heads, not surprised and thoroughly entertained once again.

When the fourth period bell finally rang, everyone shot out of their seats. It was the last bell of the day.

Ryan walked out of Chemistry with sleepy eyes, still reeling from her nap and the confrontation she'd had with her teacher. It was only her fourth week at Douglas MacArthur High School and she was already on a teacher's shit list. Not exactly the way she wanted to acclimate to a new school.

A weight seemed to lift off of her shoulders when she caught a glimpse of Sam walking towards her in the crowded hallway. He had a smirk on his face as he approached her, his advanced English book in hand.

"You fall asleep again?" She just nodded, inhaling deeply.

He laughed and shook his head, wrapping an arm around her neck. They walked together through the hallway toward the exit, attendees of the school, and yet complete outsiders.

Nobody knew their secret. Nobody knew why'd they'd mysteriously just shown up four weeks ago, or why they'd mysteriously disappear sometime within the next two weeks.

The parking lot was crowded. They were in the middle class part of Alamogordo, New Mexico, so there weren't exactly a plethora of BMW's or Mercedes', but one car in particular stood out from the rest. The shiny black classic drove up to the curb Sam and Ryan were standing on, its engine revving, mimicking the impatience of its driver. The passenger window rolled down slowly.

"Come on you two, recess is over!" Dean yelled from the driver's seat.

Sam and Ryan tried as hard as they could to remain inconspicuous and practically unnoticed at school, but the Impala didn't help that effort whatsoever.

People stared as they got into the car, Sam in the front and Ryan in the back. She chucked her backpack to the opposite side and used it as a pillow, sprawling out in the backseat. Dean turned back to look at her.

"Long day of crayons and mystery meat?" he taunted, a little too prideful of the fact that he was no longer in school.

"Shut up and drive, Dean."


	2. Chapter 2

After schlepping her bag onto the floor next to her bed, Ryan decided to wash the day away with a shower. When she got out, she'd wrapped herself in a towel and had another on her head, thinking that she'd either be alone in the room or it would just be Dean, who'd already walked in on her without thinking more times than she could count.

But it wasn't Dean sitting on her bed, arms crossed and lips tight.

It was John.

Ryan was caught off guard when she found John in her room, considering he was hardly in the hotel room to begin with. And by the looks of it, he was unhappy about something.

"Oh, hi, Mr. Winchester," she smiled hesitantly, tightening her towel.

He didn't reply, he just continued to stare at her with the same hard expression, one eyebrow raised.

"Is there something you-"

"I got a phone call from your chemistry teacher today."

Great. Four weeks at school and already getting phone calls to home. And not even her home, really. Bobby was off chasing who-knows-what and had left her with the Winchester's for an indefinite amount of time. Long enough, however, for John to be put down as Ryan's immediate contact at school.

"Oh. Right." She walked towards her suitcase, carefully sorting through it to find a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt to laze around in for the rest of the night.

"_'Oh, right'_? Ryan, you can't be falling asleep in class every day. You fall asleep, you act out, people will start asking questions. If people ask questions, we have to move. And I haven't closed this case yet," his voice raised.

Ryan turned around to face him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Winchester. I didn't think about it like that."

She was obviously unfamiliar with the life of a nomadic hunter. Up until about six months ago, she was a normal high school student with normal friends and a normal life. Completely unaware of the evil that lived inside of her, Ryan went through the motions with an every day routine. She was smart, near the top of her class, on the straight track to getting into a good college on scholarship. And then it happened.

The memory flashed through her head like a movie, causing her insides to swell up and tighten. She turned away from him as her eyes shut tightly.

John knew that he'd cracked open a box of bad mojo by getting after her and her ignorance.

"I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm sorry. I know this must be hard… leaving your life behind cold turkey,"

"I didn't leave anything behind. Just an empty town full of ash," she reminisced, her voice sounding far away as the scenes played out in her head.

"Don't talk like that, Ryan. You're here now, and we're not gonna let anything happen to you. Don't worry."

She turned back around, a small smile forming on her lips. "Thanks."


	3. Chapter 3

Ryan's English, chemistry and U.S. History books were stacked on top of each other, loose leaf notebook paper sticking out from each end. She'd finished all of the assignments in those classes, finding them remarkably easy and even slightly dull. But as she stared at her calculus homework, she wished for the simplicity of her other classes. Yes, it was actually a challenge, which was rare of her. But it was a challenge sitting on top of three hours sleep the previous night and a nasty, greasy takeout meal that John had brought her and Sam for dinner an hour before. It was not the best moment for her to be focusing on the inverse of sin and cosine.

She got about halfway through it without difficulty, but once she reached the point in the assignment where the problems became excessively difficult, she slammed the book shut, the notebook paper keeping her place so that she could return to it eventually when she wasn't in such a crappy mood.

It was multiple things building up that were causing her funk. John getting after her for sleeping in class wasn't exactly what she needed after a tough day of getting bitched at by her teacher, and on top of everything, she missed her dad. For so long, it had been just him and her against the world, having each other's backs and working together after they'd lost her mom. Ryan knew that Bobby was just trying to find the answers to the terrifying questions in relation to her power and what exactly caused her snap and wipe out an entire town without even a snap of her fingers. Despite the fact that the Winchester's were good company and they took care of her, she still hadn't seen her own father in six months. It was getting to her.

Ryan climbed into bed and flipped on the television, surfing through the basic cable channels in search of something she could fall asleep to. Hopefully she'd get more than three hours, and that would allow her to fight through the urge to nap in chemistry. She didn't want anymore teacher-or parent-confrontations. But it was hard when every single time her eyes shut, she felt that same force that she felt on that darkened Mankato street. The same force that had desecrated her entire hometown. And not only did that uneasy, evil feeling cause her restlessness, but anytime it subsided long enough for her to actually fall asleep, she had the most raw, terrifying nightmares. Sam and Dean took turns staying in the same room with her, not because they liked the pleasure of her company, but because they knew that she'd cause them to lose sleep as well. Her screams in the middle of the night were shrill with terror, and whoever was in the room with her would wake her up, remind her that she was dreaming, and then stay up with her until she drifted back into some form of unconsciousness. She'd fought with them on multiple occasions, insisting that they both sleep in the adjoining room so that they'd at least get a good night's sleep, but neither would have it. For some reason, even though they'd only known her for a short amount of time, both of the brothers felt very protective over her. Even when it was just her dreams causing her the pain.

She'd started to doze off to _Wheel of Fortune_ around midnight. The low hum of the television and the flashing lights helping her sleep. It was almost like the voices and the lights cancelled out whatever else wanted to creep into her head. The comforting sound of the television, however, was interrupted when the front door flew open, colliding into the wall with a huge bang.

Ryan's eyes flew open, her hunter instincts causing her to grip the knife under her pillow. It was dark, and she couldn't make out what had just barged into her room, but she could hear little snickers from a male and a female, and what sounded like someone smacking their lips together. It took her a few seconds to realize that the smacking noise was the two people kissing. A few things fell to the floor with a clunk, and they collapsed as one unit onto the bed next to hers.

All it took was one rough, husky grunt from the male for her to know exactly who it was. Her stomach dropped unexpectedly, a small sense of disappointment washing through her. But that soon faded into pure irritation. She reached over to the lamp on the nightstand and flicked it on, her eyebrow raised as she eyed the two half naked people, one of them being Dean Winchester.

"Oh shi-" he nearly swore as his eyes narrowed, his female friend putting her hand over her face to shield herself from the light.

"Hi." Ryan said through a fake smile, her eyes still sleepy.

Dean slowly sat up, the blonde on top of him that was wearing far too much makeup doing the same. She stood and reached for her blouse, buttoning it up quickly.

"I'm just gonna-" she gestured toward the front door with her hand.

"Good idea. Goodnight!" Ryan kept up the fake smile, but it wasn't enough to mask the fact that if the bimbo didn't walk out of the room within ten seconds, she'd be thrown out.

The girl walked out of the room after giving Dean a final glance, her stripper perfume trailing behind her. Ryan rolled her eyes immediately after the door slammed shut, let out a sigh and lay back down on the bed. Dean was slipping his fitted white t-shirt back on and stripping down to his boxers, probably annoyed that Ryan had cock-blocked him. But it was his own damn fault. He could have at least had the decency to rent out another motel room. By the looks of the girl, a place that rented by the hour.

"Well, that was bracing. I've never seen you draw claws like that, Singer, were you jealous?"

Ryan raised an eyebrow at him. She was not in the mood.

"Oh, c'mon. You know the second you turned on the light and caught a glimpse of this sweet ass, you were ready to cat fight that girl."

"Cat fight the girl that had a store bought manicure and plastic heels? No thanks, Dean."

He chuckled softly, getting under the covers of his own bed and flipping off the light.

"I was asleep, you know," Ryan said after a few seconds of silence.

Dean knew the gravity of that statement. It had been days since she'd been able to really fall asleep. She'd caught a few minutes here and there, but never really gotten into any kind of REM cycle.

He instantly felt terrible. "I'm sorry, Ry. We were kind of drunk and in the moment and I-"

"Don't worry about it. I get it. You like to have fun. You don't have to explain anything to me."

She was trying to play it cool, but they both knew-hell, even Sam and John knew-that Ryan held a torch for Dean. Despite the fact that most of the time all they did was argue, he was the only person that she felt she could open up to. He was the only person that knew the whole story of Mankato, that knew exactly what she was dreaming about when she would scream in the middle of the night. And because he was the only one that knew, he was the only one that seemed to be able to calm her down. Whether she wanted to believe it or not, she sure as hell was jealous when Dean burst into their room with another girl. A girl who wasn't inhabited by some evil entity, a girl who didn't wear combat boots, a girl who knew how to do her makeup. Even though she might have been trashy, Ryan didn't compare to her femininity. She was raised by a man-a hunter, no less-and she wasn't exactly educated on makeup or manicures.

"Yeah but you didn't need to see it."

Ryan didn't say anything to that comment, but she silently agreed. Seeing that had hurt her in a way she didn't expect. It was almost like she was sharing her best friend, and she didn't like the idea of that. Not one bit.

"I've seen you with plenty of girls. It's nothing new to me," she tried her best to sound unattached.

"Yeah, about that. Do you ever… you know… wish I didn't?"

"Didn't what?"

"Hook up with girls. 'Cause God knows I've made a habit out of it."

As Ryan thought about what to say, her heart began to race. It was the first time Dean had ever acknowledged the fact that Ryan felt more for him than just an older brother type.

"Sometimes, yeah, Dean."

He didn't say anything, and she immediately felt stupid. She'd made herself look like a jealous little fifth grader that had a crush on the cute, popular sixth grader. She rolled over on her side so that she wasn't facing him anymore. Her eyes closed, and her mind drifted to the television as she tried to block out the silence that was coming from the other side of the room.

"Don't worry about the nightmares tonight, Ry. I'll be here when you wake up. I promise."

Her eyes opened, and a small smile spread on her lips.


End file.
